by JD Nixon
“Why do I now suddenly wish I was back overseas again?” he muttered to himself.
Chapter 10
I wouldn’t deny it – I was miffed with his response. Out of everyone to whom I’d told my intentions about Denny’s funeral, I’d thought he’d be the one person who’d understand. Boy, was I mistaken.
When we returned to the station, I flung myself down on my chair and started my computer. I had no idea what I planned to do on it, but it was one way of showing him how annoyed I was at what I considered to be his lack of support.
“Tess,” he tried. “How about we talk about it again closer to the date? I heard that his body hasn’t even been released yet.”
“Okay,” I conceded, though I wasn’t expecting to change my mind.
“Tess,” he said again, making me look up. “I found this in your drawer.”
He handed over the still-wrapped gift that Joanna had delivered earlier.
I had the grace to blush a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to open it.”
He rose and stood next to me, opening the bottom drawer of my desk. “Then I found all these.”
I wished I could disappear.
Not being able to bear to witness the wounded expression on his face, and feeling like a churlish sod, I went on the offensive. “What were you doing looking in my drawers anyway?”
“I was looking for a pen that would work early this morning.” I couldn’t force myself to meet his eyes. “You didn’t like my gifts?”
I stared down at the colourful, beautifully-wrapped boxes. I could have lied and told him that Baz wouldn’t allow them on my desk, or that the Bycrafts had tried to steal them, but I knew he deserved better than that. There was no point trying to dissemble. I’d been caught red-handed.
“The ones I opened were so beautiful.” I reached into the drawer to pull out my favourite, an exquisite trio of tiny crystal chickens. I glanced up at him. “I had them all on my desk for a while. They really brightened up my life.”
“But you stopped opening them? They stopped brightening your life?”
“They started to remind me about . . .” I shrugged awkwardly, not wanting to finish the sentence.
“Then I’m sorry I sent them,” he said, his voice subdued. “I never meant for them to be anything except a way to let you know that I was thinking about you.” He walked to the back door. “I’m going home for some lunch. See you this afternoon.”
As soon as he left, I held my head in my hands. Stupid, ungrateful dumbarse, I berated myself. Why didn’t I take them all home instead of leaving them here at the station? Why hadn’t I at least done him the courtesy of opening them?
It might be too little, too late, but I sat at his desk – mine being far too messy – unwrapping all the presents he’d sent, reading his hand-written notes. I pinpointed the exact note where he first stopped mentioning Melissa, wondering what had happened between that week and the week preceding it.
When he returned after his lunch – which I hadn’t failed to notice that for once he hadn’t invited me to join – dainty and charming souvenirs from across Europe and Northern America surrounded me.
“I never realised I’d sent so many,” he said light-heartedly, seemingly having recovered his equanimity. He placed a plastic-wrapped sandwich and juice in front of me.
“Aw, thanks, Sarge,” I said sincerely, after trying and failing to ignore my growling tummy for the last fifteen minutes. “Dare I ask what’s on it?”
“Guess,” he smiled.
“Tuna and salad, right?”
“The woman’s a psychic.”
“Is this all you ate while you were overseas?” I asked, my voice rudely muffled by a mouthful of food.
He laughed. “No. I ate a lot of different and delicious food.” He patted his stomach. “Going to have to make up for that.”
“Make up for what? You look the same as when you left.”
“Flatterer. You, however, are much thinner. Have you been looking after yourself properly?”
“I’ve been running a lot.” I glanced at him sideways. “And I haven’t had a Tim Tam for ages. Baz isn’t a believer in keeping his subordinate happy.”
“That’s probably part of his disciplinary program.”
“But luckily not part of yours.”
“I can see you haven’t learned any subtlety since I’ve been gone.” I tipped up the bottle of juice until it pointed up at the ceiling to dredge the last drops from it with a loud slurp. He watched me, shaking his head. “Classy.”
“Hey, have you met Baz? Any amount of classiness would have been wasted with him around.”
“Speaking of Baz, he’s leaving tomorrow to spend a few days with Foxy in Big Town before he goes back to the city.”
“He must be feeling better if he’s up to tackling her for a few days.”
“Apparently. I want to take him out for dinner tonight to farewell him and to thank him for standing in for me. And for keeping you out of trouble.” I pulled a face at him. “I’m hoping you’ll join us. I’m taking him to the bistro.”
“Are you paying?”
“Yes, of course I am,” he sighed. “Don’t I always?”
“Okay, then I’ll come.”
“Thanks. I’m honoured. Really.”
I was about to tell him he should be, when the phone rang. “Mount Big Town police station. Senior Constable Fuller speaking.”
“Tess, it’s X here. Zelda and I have read your report and we’ve tried to contact Mr Mansfield. Problem is, we can’t find anyone with that name in Wattling Bay. The phone number he gave you is disconnected, and the address belongs to a vacant block. Also, we can’t find any trace of a teenager called Jamie Mansfield ever having lived here. Are you sure they’re the correct details he gave you?”
“I wouldn’t have got all of those details wrong,” I claimed indignantly, offended by the suggestion. “I’ll check my notes.”
I retrieved the original incident form I’d filled in and read out his phone number, address and his name, spelling them out just as I’d made the man spell them for me.
“Did you ask him for any ID?”
“No, why would I? He’d just learned his son might have been killed in a tragic accident.”
“Had he? Are you sure he was the boy’s father?”
“Well, he was very open and helpful, and seemed genuinely upset,” I said, doubts creeping into my voice. “Why would someone pretend to be a dead teenager’s parent? It’s not like there would be anything to inherit from him. And he said he was going to contact you personally.”
“I don’t suppose you have the originals of those photos you attached to the report?”
“No, he wouldn’t give them to me because they were his only copies. That’s why I took scans of them. He said he’d be in contact with you, and I thought he’d be happier to hand them over to you.”
“He hasn’t contacted us, and he doesn’t appear to exist.”
“Oh. Do you think he was just some weirdo getting his jollies? Or a journalist, or something?”
“Who knows? We have no idea what’s going on. You said in your report that he asked if you knew where the two teens had been residing while in Mount Big Town, correct?”
“Yep. But I don’t know where that is, so I couldn’t help him. And ‘residing’ is probably too strong a term. You heard what all the owners of the outlying properties said – none of them had noticed any intruders.”
“Describe his car again.”
“Geez, Mr X. It was just an old bomb. Nothing noteworthy about it at all. I’ve written down everything I could remember about it. And I didn’t get the number plate.”
He blew out frustrated air. “I don’t know what to say. We thought we had an ID on our kid, but now it all seems like a load of bullshit.”
I felt terrible – and incompetent. “I’m sorry. I really thought it was a major development.”
“So did we. And look, I’m not blaming you for anythi
ng, Tess. You did your job. I just wish we could do ours and solve at least one case in our career. The Super’s on our arse constantly about improving our solve rates.”
“She was biting our arses something fierce this morning too.”
“Heard Finn was back. I’m glad he was exonerated and you’re free of that disciplinary bullshit.”
“Me too.”
“Sometimes, I just don’t know why any of us persevere in this job.”
“It must be for the glamour and the money, right?” And we both had a good, if rather bitter-tinged, laugh about that before he rang off.
I gave a curious Sarge a quick rundown on the puzzling conversation.
“That’s very strange,” he agreed.
“I wish you’d turned up at the station a little earlier.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling in thanks. “Finally, she admits she was glad to see me again.”
I threw my screwed up piece of lunch wrap at him. “Not because of that, but because you would have seen this man too. I’m starting to think I made him up. I don’t suppose you saw an old browny bomb heading out of town when you drove in?”
“Are you kidding? In this town, every second car is an old bomb. They’re everywhere.”
“Tell me about it,” I said dryly, thinking about my old bomb. I stood and paced around the room. “Why would someone pretend to be the father of . . . let’s just call him Jamie to make it easier.”
“Someone trying to get a scoop on the story?”
“It’s not a fresh story. It was weeks old before this guy turned up.”
“You say this man knew Jamie was with the teenage girl, right?”
“Right.”
“And that corresponds with what Dave Gatton told you, right?”
“Right.” I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed having him around to bounce ideas off. Baz was a good listener and instructor, but he’d never let me forget I was the junior officer.
“Wouldn’t that suggest that this guy actually does know something about Jamie?”
“He certainly had photos of him. I didn’t see his face for long, but it sure looked like the boy I saw to me.” An idea struck me. “Sarge, let’s take the scans of the photos to Mr Grimmell. He saw the boy’s face for much longer than anyone else.”
“Good thinking.”
“And then, because that man was so interested in where Jamie had been staying, perhaps we should also spend some time this afternoon poking around where Dave’s ute was abandoned. We need to find Jamie’s girlfriend. We might find a trace of her around there. She could be out there afraid, maybe not even knowing yet that Jamie died.”
“Okay.”
Twenty minutes later at the supermarket, Mr Grimmell, after a great deal of umming and ahhing, informed us he was, “within the realms of possible mistaken identity, you understand, Officers”, reasonably sure that the boy in the photo was the one who robbed him.
“What an old windbag,” the Sarge exclaimed when we escaped back to the patrol car.
I entertained him on the drive to the approximate spot Dave’s ute had been abandoned by telling him about Grimmell’s lecherous advances to me as a teenager working part-time in his supermarket.
“Dirty old pervert,” judged the Sarge in distaste.
“Now he acts as though I’m a complete stranger to him. Just one of the town’s cops that he’s on passing acquaintance with,” I laughed.
“He’s probably afraid if he pretends to recognise you, you’ll remember everything he did and go for his dangly bits with your knife.”
“I hope so. That would make me happy,” I said with quiet satisfaction.
We spent the rest of a fruitless afternoon searching through the bushes near the abandoned ute site for any sign of the missing girl, or any site that looked as if it had been used as a camp. Scratched, hot and bothered, and ultimately unsuccessful, the Sarge suggested we ask around the neighbouring properties again.
“No way!” I declined firmly. “They’ll tear us apart if we ask them one more question. I have no doubt that if anyone discovers something, they’ll report it to us as soon as possible.”
And with the sunset colouring the sky to a beautiful pink, we decided to call it a day. As we parted ways, he offered to drive me to and from dinner tonight so that I could have a few drinks. I tossed it over in my mind, but on remembering the sheer luxury of his sporty little car, I couldn’t refuse. It had been a while since I’d been treated to a spin in it.
I decided I had enough time for a bath before he came to collect me, and lay ensconced in scented bubbles, my feet propped up on the bath ledge. I thought about what the Super had said to me earlier in the day – it was time for me to move on.
Was I ready to move on?
Fiona had always been supportive of me, so why should I doubt that what she’d done had been done in my best interest?
The Sarge had kept his promise to return to Little Town, so why should I stay angry with him, and keep blaming him for something he had no ultimate control over? He’d taken on board what the Super had said to him about how I’d felt abandoned and had apologised sincerely for that. Shouldn’t I be prepared to do the same in return for him?
Baz had given me a pass mark, and he’d had to wrangle enough bad apple cops to be able to pick one worth redeeming over one who wasn’t. He’d thought my career was worth saving, and didn’t that mean something?
Mocking myself for being so over-philosophical, I decided as I towelled off, listening to the water gurgling down the drain, I’d just take one day at a time from now on.
And I thought that was all anyone should expect of me.
*****
Dinner was nice. I hadn’t gone to excessive trouble to dress up, but both the Sarge and Baz were kind enough to compliment me on my appearance, which gave me a warm buzz I hadn’t felt for a while.
“Geez, Tezza. You look like a different woman all prettied up like that and almost smiling.” He rolled his eyes in the Sarge’s direction. “I see it makes a difference who’s around.”
I scowled at him, not amused by his attempt at humour.
“Now, Baz,” the Sarge admonished. “Don’t go spoiling her sunshine by bringing me into it. She still hasn’t even welcomed me back yet. She’s just excited by the prospect of having a never-ending supply of Tim Tams again.”
“That is true, actually,” I said, studying the menu. I was starving, and as he was paying, I wasn’t going to hold back.
“You spoil her,” Baz scolded with a hearty laugh.
“Yeah, but you can see why I do. It makes such a difference to her attitude.”
“You’re telling me. She was Miss Vinegar Tits the whole time I was with her.”
I looked over the top of my menu at him. “That’s Senior Constable Vinegar Tits to you, thank you very much.” I shifted my eyes to the Sarge. “And I’d appreciate it if you two would stop talking about me. Especially when I’m sitting right here in front of you.”
Romi almost tripped over herself rushing down the stairs. She hung around, not quite daring to approach, until Abe, taking our orders personally, shooed her back upstairs to do her homework. I smiled up at him, and reeled off my huge order. The three men stared at me.
“What? I’m hungry,” I said, slightly defensive.
“Apart from the fact that she’s always hungry, she does need some fattening up,” said the Sarge with a smile. “She’s much thinner than when I left.”
“That’s what I thought when I first laid eyes on her – nothing but a bag of bones,” agreed Baz, comfortably patting his expansive girth. “I like a woman with a bit of meat on her.”
“You want some bread with your order too, Tessie?” asked Abe with a smirk.
“You men are just plain rude.” I glanced up at Abe again with defiance. “Yeah, why not? Bring out two serves of bread while you’re at it.”
Much later, I pushed away my dessert plate, absolutely stuffed to the gills.
�
��Unbelievable,” commented Baz in awe, watching me.
“Not to mention rather frightening,” agreed the Sarge.
“I never thought she be able to do it. I’m not sure whether to be shocked or impressed.”
“It was like watching a boa constrictor consuming its prey. I think she has a detachable jaw.”
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t chew anything. It went straight down.”
“I’m convinced she inhaled all three courses.”
“Shut up, you two,” I complained, glad I’d worn a dress and not a pair of jeans, because I’d be busting out of them by now. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to eat nothing but lettuce leafs.”
“You’ve well and truly proven that point tonight,” said the Sarge. Then with a sly smile, he asked, “Do you want anything else before I ask for the bill?”
“Very funny. I’m going to the ladies, so I’d appreciate it if you have any further smartarse comments about me, you make them in my absence.” And I stalked off, leaving them chuckling behind me.
While I peered in the mirror, freshening up my make up, my phone rang. I inwardly groaned when I saw my caller.
“Hi, Jakey.”
“You’re having dinner with him? The second he gets back into town? Really, Tess?”
I lost my temper straight away. “It’s Baz’s last night, so it’s a goodbye dinner. It’s not as if I’m dining alone with the Sarge.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like him.”
“You tell me exactly what you think I’m doing wrong, Jacob Bycraft. I’m not cheating on you. I’m not flirting with anyone. I’m just having dinner with two colleagues in a room full of other people.” I was on a roll and I didn’t plan on stopping now. “And please, do tell me who you’ve recruited as your new spy to replace Denny.”
I’ll admit that was below-the-belt, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when he hung up on me.
I tracked the two men down to the lounge bar where they’d moved from the bistro.
Clocking my cranky face, the Sarge asked, “Everything okay?”
